Well, the fish are in the basement

[ididntdoit99]

Certainley was not the plan, but this warm winter weather has really messed everything up for my pond. We had some nice 50 mph wind gusts last weekend, and being that there is supposed to be snow on the ground right now, I had removed my fall netting from over the pond when i was getting ready for winter.

Well, that wind brought large amounts of leaves with it, and by yesterday, when i walked out and looked at the pond again, my water was turning a nice tea colored. So at this point, i have tea colored water, tons of leaves in the bottom, that are kind of impossible to scoop out because all of my potted plants are in the bottom of the pond, and don't forget the hole in my liner from the nieghbor dog.

SO I went outside and was planning on scooping out all of the plants scooping out leaves and doing some massive water changes over the next week to get rid of the brown color in the water, but as i started pumping out some of the water, I figured i might as well just bring the fish inside. This pond has a hole in it.... i have to dig it all up in the spring and start over, no use wasting my time trying to keep it going now.

So, at the moment, they are in (2) 55 gallon tubs, one with the 5 koi in it, and the other with the 15 or so goldfish in it. NOT exactly the greatest home, but works for this weekend.

Tomorrow, when I go back to work, I need to talk to one of the other engineers about a project we worked on, we were welding some radiators and had to build this 4x4 tank that was maybe 2 or 3 feets deep that we filled with water and then put the radiators in and pressurized them to make sure they didn't leak. Anyway, I'm pretty sure we arent helping out with that project anymore, and this stainless steel tank is no longer needed and is just wasting space. So that would be a perfect little pond if i can get my hands on that for scrap price.

I'll try to get some picture in a little bit, my basemnt is kinda dark in that corner, so i dont know how well youll be able to see them.

 

[j.w]

Guess mother nature gave you the push to do the job sooner than later 99. Hope you get that stainless tank as it sounds like it would be prefect til you can get your pond redone.

 

[addy1]

Nature has a way of doing that jw, put the anti heron fence back up, the sucker has not come back ...............yet We are cooling off again, so the pond will freeze up some again, best anti heron deterrent.

 

[j.w]

addy that bird is messing w/ you big time. I think he just likes seeing you work!

 

[ididntdoit99]

Well as of this morning... the death toll is at 2.... could be 3 anytime unless this little guy makes it.

Thursday night in the dark, once I realized how many leaves had fallen in my pond, i was out there trying to scoop them out and scooped up one of my black goldfish, didnt see him with the flashilight in the dark.

Friday after work i scooped out even more leaves from the surface, and tried to get some from the bottom, but couldnt because the potted plants were down there.

Saturday was when i fianlly decided to just bring the fish inside, When I drained part of the pond to make them easier to catch, apparently one little goldfish decided he wasnt going to go down to the bottom of the pond as the water drained, he hid in the rocks and i didnt see him there until sunday.

and as for the one that may not make it... once i brought them inside, i covered the koi tub with netting, but didnt bother to cover the goldfish tank... so of course a goldfish jumped out, i found him who knows how long later, in between the tub and the wall, in a tiny area i couldn't stick my hand in... so on top of being out of the water for a while, he got kinda scraped up as i tried to scoot him along the floor with a broom handle. this was also on saturday night... and he was still swimming fine this morning, so maybe he will make it. oh yes, and both tubs are now covered.

And I found out this fine morning that the tank that I hoped to buy for scrap prices at work is gone (Yay) We have our big warehouse on the property where were store lots of pretty much junk, inventory reduced product, old machines, tables, blah blah junk. But our President actually took it upon himself to clean that entire warehouse out this summer and toss anything we didnt need. Well that went bye bye, along with lots of other things we actually needed, engineering has spent hours on the phone with the scrap yard trying to hunt down tooling that was tossed. We actually got some of our $15,000 tooling back before it was melted down and recycled because we ssent two engineers to a scrap yard to dig through dumpsters.

SO, I think im going to call around to a couple of friends, see if i can't get ahold of at least a 100 gallon stock tank. still not exactly what i wanted, but better than the 50 gallon tubs they are in now. maybe pu tthe 5 koi in the stock tank and leave the goldfish in the 50 gallon tubs.

 

[j.w]

That's too bad 99. That happened to me when I tore down my first pond. Some of the fish hid in the rocks on the ledge just below the rim and I didn't realize it til the next day. Still feel bad about it.........seeing those poor fish laying there dead haunts me. Sorry you lost the tank you were hoping for and what a foul up Mr Prez made! He is the big wig tho and nobody to spank him so he gets to go free. Did you check out that auction site that sissy talks about to find a stock tank.................auction.com or something like that? She said she gets them cheap sometimes when they have them. You could use a kids swimming pool if you can find one in the winter............maybe a friend might have one to loan ya.

 

[ididntdoit99]

I actually have 2 blow up swimming pools, and i kept the fish in one last winter when they were much smaller. I might do that again... his seem way smaller than these ones im looking at on the net, i thought his only held like 75 gallons or something.

 

[CountryEscape]

99 I would be somewhat worried about fins poking a blow up pool, but if you have used it in the past, it will probably be just fine. I have some new koi I puchased at the end of the season in a kiddie pool in my basement. It's about 14" deep, and I put the filter box above it! Actually, I put a bottom section of a plastic shelf unit in the pool, then put the filter DIY box on top of that. This way, the water drains over the edge, back into the pool, with no worries that it will leak down the sides. I've had it up for I think 3 weeks now, almost 4, and it's working fabulous. Using my skimmer pump to cycle the water. Have had to add water every other day (I carry down the 3.5 gal buckets, so doing it slowly, which I'm sure is best for the fish anyhow), and the water is crystal clear, no waste on the bottom at all yet. I've been feeding very lightly, but they are eating very lightly. Seems several want 2-3 pieces, whereas other want one piece and then that's it. I've been very careful to only feed what they will eat, so not as much waste on the bottom. Also have 2 water jets, one on each side, shooting in the same direction, to give somewhat of a whirlpool effect to keep the waste toward the pump. So far so good!
Good luck locating a larger container.

 

[sissy]

The large tanks they have at tractor supply work but they are not cheap .Seems like when things go bad they always go bad in threes and hope it works out 99 .

 

[rebelangel_3733]

hello again guys n gals! I never thought of putting my fish in a kids pool for the winter good idea! Right now my 5 guys/gals are in a 20 gal tub on the porch seemingly pretty content so far this winter. Except we here in Nebraska have had an unusually warm winter so far with the coldest day so being yesterday and today in the 20's...other than that it's been in the upper 40's to 70! I have my areator pump from the pond in the tub so my fish are in so they think of home til spring. We haven't had any snow here yet other than one dusting. Unreal...I could have just left them outside, but my pond is only 18" so...the water in their tank on the porch (which is somewhat heated but not as warm as the house) has been in the upper 40's and they still seem to want to eat. Good luck 99!

 

[CountryEscape]

Wow, Rebel, your fish went to a quite smaller tub for winter. You'll need to watch water quality in that size. It's like putting them in a 20 gal aquarium. What size/type of fish do you have? Sounds like you have everything under control. Do you have any type of filter system set up for your porch tub? Yeah, fish are greedy, even when they shouldn't be. Don't get sucked in to feed them.

The good thing about my basement "pool" is that the water temps are staying at 58 degrees F, so I've been allowed to feed them. They come up fast when I go down there, but only want a piece or two each, then they return to the bottom, like "that's enough, I'm full", which is fine, as the less I feed, the less waste they produce. I have 2 "jet" pumps on the bottom, trying to keep a whirlpool situation going, to keep the waste toward the pump, then my "filter" is a tub with scrubbies and I just have it leaning to overflow into a laundry basket with quilt batting to help keep the water clear, and it's working great. I'm somewhat embarrassed to show what it looks like, talk about redneck, but here it is.

 

[sissy]

hey if it works it works and great way to save money .Fish are happy and healthy .I would probably do the same thing if i did not have the big tank .Have you checked out auction zip .com they sell a lot of stuff from farms .I bought a couple of tanks from an auction here .Just click on the state where you live and most have pics and a list of stuff being sold .I hope to go to one this weekend a store in Hillsville is selling out and have some pond supplies on the sale

 

[j.w]

Well it may not be real purdy but hey country it's doing it's job...............................do the fish ever use the slide

 

[rebelangel_3733]

Oh wow country your's is way more elaberate than mine! My areator does have a small filter and that seems to be doing the trick to help keep the water clear...plus I've had to add water everyweek since for some reason the little splashes it makes outside the tub (thus the reason for the lids around the tub). Twice now I've went on the porch to find the darn pump for some reason sprayed outside and almost emptied the water!! Freaked me out to say the least but my guys had about 4 inches of water left (thank God!). It sticks with suction cups to the tub and have no idea how it moved to be able to spray outside of the tub! The back porch also houses a few of the outside plants that I had no room for in the house (we have about 20 plants inside that go out in the spring) and my pump that is in a garbage can filled with water waiting to go back out into the pond. I bet if you set up your water to run down the slide it would simulate a waterfall. Thats the kind of pool I imagined when you mentioned it earlier (kewl idea!), but to big for my back porch. Our house is 100 yrs old with an old small dark basement area and I just couldn't see putting them down there. The entrance to it is off of our back porch where we remodeled the room to be a spare bedroom (ya with a trap door) so we just basically use it for storage, and I like keeping an eye on them on the porch. Oh my word I stuffed xmas stuff in that room to be boxed up and put away yet! UGH I forgot! Thanks for the reminder! lol

https://picasaweb.google.com/rebela...authkey=Gv1sRgCOnNr7CKwt2TrgE&feat=directlink

 

[sissy]

the slide is for country LOL